A/73/227 (b) Systematically challenge practices, norms, discourses and interpretations that reduce the cultural choices of persons by encouraging informed debates about how these can be modified to be in conformity with international human rights standards; (c) Relevant academic bodies should consider sponsoring symposiums, curricula and scholarship on the importance of universality, which, in accordance with academic freedom, challenge cultural relativism. 77. To improve respect for cultural diversity within the framework of universal rights, States should: (a) Take the steps necessary to bolster the right of each person to freely choose and have cultural references and to identify with multiple and simultaneous cultural groups or none, to participate in cultural life and to be able to change their choices and exit groups; (b) Strengthen the mechanisms for the protection of persons at risk of human rights abuses, intimidation, violence and discrimination for choosing not to participate in certain cultural practices, or who challenge norms and interpretations or decide to exit a group with which they no longer ident ify; where such mechanisms of protection do not exist, develop them; (c) Reaffirm the importance of secularism and the separation of religion and State, and of secular spaces, for the full implementation of freedom of religion or belief and all other human rights; (d) Respect, protect and fulfil the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and respect and operationalize the right to free, prior and informed consent in all processes that have an impact on their cultural rights; (e) Recognize and value cultural diversity, respect its free development within the framework of universal human rights and avoid abusively restricting its expression; recognize and respect cultural dissent, syncretism and cultural mixing, as well as the rights to re-interpret and recreate cultures; (f) Develop and implement cultural policies and measures aimed at protecting and promoting cultural diversity, in accordance with international standards, and enabling each person to freely take part in it; (g) Create an enabling environment to enhance access to and participation in cultural life, as well as access to the cultural resources of others; this includes reviewing educational programmes and manuals to ensure that they provide access to knowledge about a diversity of cultural resources and to human rights education; (h) Maintain, protect and develop open, safe and diverse public spaces, including intercultural spaces, and foster opportunities for a diversified cultural life to evolve in such spaces; (i) Set up an institutional framework and support cultural institutions and public infrastructure in facilitating access to a rich and diversified range of cultural expressions; (j) Ratify and implement the Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions. 22/26 18-12312